S2-EP34 - The Global Family Footprint

Faridah Abdul-Tawwab Brown and Frank Abdul Shaheed introduce a 3rd episode to a new season of The Family Ties, framing the show as a prescription for healing the human family through a covenantal relationship with God, rooted in the African American experience of chattel slavery and the creation of culture from “essence” rather than inherited traditions. They discuss how obedience, spirituals, blues, and jazz expressed humanity and helped shape America, which they describe as the “final conversation” on human establishment and a call back to founding ideals. They contrast human capital guiding material production versus materialism controlling people, and address February 2026 global conflicts, highlighting Palestine/Jerusalem as a focal symbol of justice and sacred human life. They emphasize knowledge, revelation, leadership, charity (including Ramadan), and invite audience engagement via their website and social platforms.

00:00 Welcome to Family Ties
00:47 Covenant in Hardship
03:41 America as Final Test
05:33 Defining Family Culture
07:17 Creating Culture from Nothing
11:31 Essence of Liberation
14:58 Music Blues and Jazz Roots
16:52 Human Capital vs Materialism
21:04 Palestine and Sacred Justice
27:00 Knowledge Revelation Leadership
29:09 Charity Ramadan and Good Life
32:31 Closing and Stay Connected

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This podcast is about family life as a means to address current problems in American society. A scripture based African American perspective. 

Welcome to The Family Ties, a Prescription for Society.
Through this experience we invite you to join us in an exploration of the concept of family ties as a prescription for society.

YOUR HOSTS:  Frank Abdul Shaheed & Faridah Abdul-Tawwab Brown

To follow Frank & Faridah visit them at https://familytiesshow.buzzsprout.com

This episode was edited by Darryl D Anderson of AMG - Ambassador Media Group, LLC visit https://www.ambassador-mediagroup.com/
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Music Credit
Happy Morning by Filo Starquez | https://www.youtube.com/@FiloStarquez

Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

Creative Commons / Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-ND 3.0)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/

Copyright 2026

Transcript

Faridah 0:00

Peace. I am Farida Abdul Towa Brown.

Frank 0:02

Peace. I am Frank Abdul Shaheed. Peace to our esteemed audience and welcome to another edition of The Family Ties. The Frank and Father show. This is our prescription for the life of the family in its entirety. I would like to introduce my esteemed co-host, sister Faridah Abdul-Tawwab Brown, and welcome her back to our wonderful episode of this group. Eight show Faridah

Faridah 0:32

I am pleased to be here, Frank. It's quite an honor always to have the opportunity to have a platform to speak truth and to speak what may be a prescription for healing for the human family into society. We come from a tradition where we are reminded that the caller. To God's way must take that responsibility seriously. And so as people who hail from the African American tradition that has shaped us we are a acutely aware of a covenant that was made with our ancestors, between our ancestors and the creator of Heavens and Earth. This was a time when. We were, we had been stripped from all that makes a human culture, human whether that is family ties, religion, ability to practice our faith the foods, the language, all of that was stripped from us. And there is a spiritual that I referenced frequently where our ancestors they saying over, over my head, there's trouble in the air. Over my head. There's trouble in the air over my head. There's trouble in the air. Not this, the answer to that wasn't despair. I am, I'm broken down. I can't go any longer. The response to over my head, there's trouble in the air, is there must be a God somewhere,

Frank 1:58

someone. Absolutely.

Faridah 1:58

So there is a calling. What is essential in the human soul recognizes that even when we are stripped from everything that makes human culture, even when we're stripped from that, the most essential matter is the relationship between the human being and the one who made, and that in that reality. The bowels of that devastating experience, our people recognized that the creator of the heavens and earth is there for us, was listening to us, was aware of what we're going through, and that, as you mentioned in another conversation about recuperating and convalescing from the surgery you had, that when you awoke the pain was gone. You, but you knew that you had to go through a period where you would go through therapy and retraining your voice and learning how to do that. And that would be a painful process. But in that process itself, there was a recognition that you had been blessed and you had been favored, that there was someone to be grateful to for the opportunity to go through that pain in order to return. To the gift of the human voice. And so it is that covenant that our ancestors made with God in that experience. That is what we are expressing today. That is what this experience. The Franken Farida show family ties, that's reiterating and reaffirming. The nature of what was given to the original family, the family of Adam and Adam's mate and Adam's children, is that the responsibility of being in the Quranic term is Khalifa, but it's a term that means a vice jar. It means a steward, it means a leader, an inheritor of something essential. That is what this. Experience what Frank Shaheed and Faridah Abdul-Towwab Brown are calling our listeners to, as a call back to what is essential, the essential matter, and that is to focus on the covenant that was made with the African American people in the bowels of human shadow slavery in the setting of the United States of America, which is now the final conversation. The final conversation on what is possible for human establishment. What is possible for the establishment of the human being and the human individual within a society. America is the final conversation on that,

Frank 4:14

right?

Faridah 4:14

And so it was, America was birthed. America was allowed to come to be with all of its contradictions. Because of the experience of the genocide of the Native Americans and the experience of chattel slavery, of our people that came out of it, that calls America and continues to call America back to the ideals that are found against. Founding documents. The ideals that are found in its founding documents, we are the group that are calling America back to that, and by virtue of America being that final conversation, we are indeed calling humanity back. Yes. By witness of this experience that recalls what is essential for the human being and that is the human being's responsibility and relationship with his or her creator, and the human dignity that must be protected so that our potential can flourish. And so in that sense, the human family is the unit that protects and carries that as a vehicle throughout all of society. So that's where our conversation is taking us as we embark upon this season.

Frank 5:19

That was amazing. That was absolutely amazing. My audience

Faridah 5:23

The praises for God.

Frank 5:24

Yes. Who listens to that would say that's quite a roadmap for us to be able to take a journey to come to conclusions. And you mentioned culture. Culture now in the business world, the corporate world, culture is a word that's they lay the foundation for a company's ideals under this term culture. So if you're coming into my co, my company, you have to have this level of culture Now, culture is a environment which can formulate people and formulate traditions, can formulate development. It can formulate so many things under this term culture. Now. My culture in my family is this. The males typically would reference themselves as the children of their parents. So I am the son of Frank Shaheed, who's my father. And I've heard my dad reference himself as the son of his father, Frank. So that's our culture, our tradition, to make sure that we are making it clear to people that what isn't just me. You're seeing me. Take them to a destiny. So my behavior, my establishments, my interests, my sensitivities my interactions should always reflect the best of what they gave me in order for us to go forward in our interactions. That's our culture. That's the culture of my family. So traditions, births. Coming out of the cultural norms that come out of the cultural developments come outta the cultural births. And hopefully what we want to do is in many of our conversations, take a little bit of time to understand what culture is and what it looks like and how it plays a role in these interactions that we have with one another. The African American. And if you look at the African American in America. Our history says that a culture was created basically from nothing really. It was from nothing. We had to create a culture from something. We didn't have anything really to draw from. We didn't have a tradition, we didn't have anything, all that stuff. We were cut off from those things, but we created a culture so that the other people who lived in this country at the time, we essentially cultured them. They already had a culture. They already had a foundation. They already had supports, but we were the ones who cultured them. How is that possible? Part of that is because we had to go to the very essential of our creation because we had nothing else. So we had to look and strip everything down because we were stripped with everything to identify what is it that makes us human actually. What is it? And one was obedience and our struggle to find our freedom. We understood that our freedom only came through obedience. If we strayed from the obedience, then we would never have the our freedom. Thus, we have the term called covenant. Covenant is not a new word. In scripture you hear the cov, the word covenant multiple times. So our covenant was with our creator because we had nothing else but obedience to give. And from that developments came, one of those developments was inventions. You figure, how did somebody create something outta nothing to study the African America? Another one of those things was music expression, but where did we get our music expression from? From, we didn't get it from anywhere except from the rhythmic beating of our heart and the systematic soul that we had in the, in our thought patterns, telling us that freedom. It's what we were destined to have. It created a rhythm in us. It created a vibe in us. It created an expression in us that whenever we engaged what the culture of America was already under, we enhanced it. And I think of the great Louis Armstrong and how his fingerprint on jazz, how he had a unique fingerprint on jazz. And most people, if you would ask them what is the most famous Louis Armstrong? Song, and most people probably would tell you as they think to themselves, what a wonderful world, how beautiful that song is. And really it's doesn't have a jazz, a traditional jazz sound, but it resonates something in the soul to say that you've come to a point where you've struggled and then you get to the point where you get that freedom. And now in acknowledging that freedom, you realize that you're open to all of what the world has to provide for you. That this is a wonderful world. So in, in this podcast, as you mentioned about the sanctity of the human soul and what that does and how important that is, and the African American as an example for the world, to see how man gets restored to having a sense of his self-worth and his soul, and to come into the world, very indigenous. Meaning that they can use what is from the land because they're from the land to make the world developmental this season and this in these upcoming episodes. I wanna make sure we take time out to really highlight those establishments and how we've come to a better culture. America of America because we are the people. This is our family ties and our expansive journey. We'll be having great discussions with friends, families, and guests about the state of the world and how we should address it,

Faridah 11:08

and we hope to hear from you as well. You can follow us at www.thefamilyties.bussprout.com. There you'll find our socials and you can follow us. Send us your questions, your comments, your agreements, your disagreements. We want to include your perspective in this dynamic and evolving conversation about how humanity together can face the challenges of the 21st century. One of the things that you mentioned that I think it's a point of reflection and that is how do you create something from nothing and. The answer is that nothing is created from nothing. That what we created from is what you pointed to its essence. It's what is essential. So that in looking at the African American people as an example of how humanity is restored to purpose, how humanity is awakened to purpose, how humanity is brought to the pinnacles. Of human experience from the barrels, the nad of a human experience, which is human chattel slavery, where your children and your children's children, and your children's children are expected within that society to remain in a state of bondage to one group of people and then to create an entire system. An ideology, psychology economically to support that called white supremacy. That was the reality that our people were developed in. But again, as you said, covenant language. Covenant language requires us to understand the relationship between salvation and obedience. That you don't get liberation. You don't rise from the ashes of an experience that breaks humanity apart. You don't rise from that without acknowledging. The one who would save you from that, right? The one who truly liberates you, not for freedom to be reckless, but for freedom to take responsibility for one's life. So returning to, again, to the question of essence and what's essential. You mentioned our music, our musical traditions the expressions of culture, our food, what we did with what was given to us. And I think that what that cre culture was created from is what's essential to the human being. And that is of course, the relationship of the human being to acknowledge that they did not create themselves. That I am here for a purpose and that I can look most essentially at myself as a sign of that creator. And obedience to that creator care for myself is going to g allow me to expand from level to level, increasing levels of understanding and responsibility until ultimately your leading society. And I think that is, is what we must point to when we look at what is distinctly African American culture. What is essentially African American culture, it's humanity. It's one's relationship with their creator the soulfulness. People traveled from Europe to come to the United States and they would travel throughout the American South just so that they could listen to the slave songs. The what we call today, the spirituals. Yes. Negro spirituals. They, today we call them, this is our. Classic music. It was born out of experience and they studied it. Composers studied this music and they were like, this is the most essential expression of the human being. Their expression of their reality, and acknowledging that the answer to a reality that is mired in struggle and toil and oppression is to recognize God and to trust just as you trusted. When you were coming through your process leave, recuperating and convalescing, you trusted that at the end of that process was going to be an opportunity to call. Yes. To use the voice that was a gift. And so as we explore the world today, and I'm looking at that expression, I'm thinking even of, how you mentioned Louis Armstrong, and I'm thinking about, where I am right now in Mississippi. I'm undertaking a study and my father. Is a historian. My sister is a historian of American religious history, but he's also a, an aficionado of music uhhuh. And so he has studied, our people's history and music history quite closely. And, so if I say anything incorrectly, I will have to correct myself, the next time I meet with you all. But here in Mississippi the birthplace of the blues, we have b, BK we have so many greats. And the blues, of course, is a precursor to jazz. Yes, jazz is, I believe, the essential American music. It's a marriage of European instrumentation and the soul that came from the experience of the African American people. Yes. And it came through the pathway of blues music and eventually jazz, birthed in New Orleans and using these different instrumentations and experiences to birth something that was uniquely American. American Classical music is jazz. Yes. So again, when we look to what birthed that, did that come from nothing? No. It came from an acknowledgement of one's humanity, an acknowledgement of the creator who gave them that humanity and a recognition that obedience to that creator and recognition and acknowledgement of the systems that must be in place to, to keep your humanity alive. That's what birth African American culture. And that's the, I think, the how we can discern, as we. Move into this this new season of discussion about the human family as we move out of the realm of the microcosm of the individual human and family. We extrapolate from that discussion how the human family writ large behaves in society and one of those discussions of course is the African American people as an example and a witness to mankind.

Frank 16:51

Yes. Yes. And that's a very good, segue, as you've said, oftentimes the north of America is typically looked at as the industrial part of the country the commerce, all of those things. But we know it all started in the south. That, that, that's the history. It all started in the south. The north just automated it and just made it a little bit more efficient and more, more streamlined. So we see production and we see the materialistic. Image of the north, but the south, we tend to see more as the, as you said, cultural, more of the soul, more of the expression, more of the humanity, more of the human expression, more in the south, in this country. And you talk about you being in, in Mississippi, so putting the two together, production and human capital. Putting them together, that's really what the family is. The family itself is about getting together and having those sensitivities and having those human interactions, understanding that it's a development there for the soul more than anything else. Expression for the soul and a development for the soul. And from that, we take that human capital and we now start to look at how we can now have our material establishment in the world under that. Premise under that guise, under that intention to make sure that the human capital will now guide the production of the material. So the material never guides the human guides the material. And unfortunately in this country, in this history, we see that to be the opposite way. That you've taken the human capital to to drive production and make production now control the human capital. So now you take a group of people and you completely eliminate their humanity from them to drive the material establishments of the world. When we look at that in history, we see a very negative and very dark history. But now because. We are looking at society in 2026. We don't typically see the same picture in the same way, but it's the same story. It just appears to be a little different. So as technology has made us more, more relaxed and we don't have to think as much and we don't have to. Consider as much as we used to. We've, our sensitivities have dulled, but yet the human capital is still under assault. It's still being victimized, it's still being wared upon that it doesn't have its greatest expression. 300 years ago, 400 years ago, it looked a different way. Today it looks completely different, but it's the same assault. So we talk about how the covenant and how the requisitioning, that was something that we did. I don't know if many understand that the human requisition, God, to intervene. We ask for God's help, but our obedience requisition God to help us because we are acknowledging something about being a servant to him. And because we are holding our end of servitude to him in obedience, we're now saying, because of this is what we requisition from you to help deliver us from this type of scenario. And thus he brings. Help to us. He brings favor to us, and we are now witnessing in the most bleak times in man's history, the most confusing times in man history. What clears that picture for us? And that's a question I want to throw to the audience and pose to the audience, what brings clarity to such a bleak and dim and blurry picture for humanity? What is it?

Faridah 20:40

You know that, that's a great question for our audience and for all of us, and I think we'll take some time to reflect upon that in our discussions. And what I wanted to say is you brought up so many good points, but one of the things you discussed was human capital and production in the context of the family. And when I look at today, you describe the se the scenario as bleak. We're looking we are currently in. February, 2026, the end of the month we are looking at Conflagrations around the world. And if our audience, our viewing audience will notice that I'm wearing a pin and on a lapel pin, and it is the pin of the. Muslim American community that comes out of this tradition of the African American requisition in God's health and it being manifested in guidance to ala and then the flag that it shares is the that it's paired with is the Palestinian flag. And we look at Palestine as the. The land the holy Land. It's described by many the Christians and Jews as the holy land. And we look at it as a sacred place, a place where in our tradition that Mohamed the prophet, prayers and peace be upon him. He traveled to this place before he ascended to the heavens, and when he returned, he established a society. In Medina a manifestation of, of justice, freedom, justice, and equality for humanity. And it was it was a conversation and a revelation that was based in that sacred precinct in Jerusalem. And what is happening there is a, an important matter for all of humanity because it is a place that distills the essence of. What it means to be human, about the covenant that mankind makes between both the individuals and communities and the creator. And that is significant for all of those, especially those of the heavenly religions, which. Trace their lineage back to Abraham. The Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. And so for many reasons, all of humanity, even those people who choose not des describe themselves or define themselves as people who do not have a faith. Okay. You can see the human struggle. You can see the human oppression that is occurring there, but it is even a greater matter because we who. Trace our spiritual lineage back to Abraham. Recognize that place is a commentary. On what is the I guess the property. The property of all of humanity.

Frank 23:17

Yes.

Faridah 23:17

It is not the property of a, it's the property of all of humanity. And it's that picture that is in in, in view, in focus right now there in, in Palestine. And so this picture is significant. I'm not wearing this just to show the solidarity between the Muslim American community and the Palestinian people. What it does is says that I am a human being who is concerned about justice. Protection of the innocence of humanity and human dignity, wherever that is. Yes. Whether that's in Congo, whether that's in Sudan, whether that's in Gaza, whether that's in South Africa, whether that's in Baltimore, Maryland, or Jackson, Mississippi. I am concerned about the dignity of the human being and anywhere. That is under assault must be the concern of every human being who claims to have a covenant with the creator. That is what this, the message that this pen speaks. And so on the, over the course of this season, we will be discussing what you have described very aptly as the bleak picture. Humanity is in and on in one frame. It's bleak. But on the other hand, as all of our audience, and we consider the answer to your question, the question you poses, where do we look? Where do we look for guidance? Where do we look for help? Where do we look for assistance? Where do we look for support in times such as these? The answer that. Our teacher and leader, Iman, Martha, Dean Muhammad, gave in the line and the vein and the thinking of Muhammad the prophet prayers and peace be upon him who came in the tradition of all the prophets back from Jesus to Moses, to Noah and Adam, is that there is a matter that is so fundamental that. There's a lot, there's a verse in the Quran and it's resonates with a teaching that was given to the children of Israel, the Jewish people. And that is that tho the one who takes one life. It's as if you take all the life of all of humanity. Yes. And if you protect one life, it's protecting the life of all of humanity. The lesson in that is that human innocence, human dignity is sacred. Human life is sacred. And if that's not. The rod of discernment, the staff of discernment that you are using to measure what is happening on the streets of Baltimore or New York City, or Buffalo or Rochester or Los Angeles, or Min, Minneapolis, Minnesota, or Gaza or the West Bank, or Congo, or Sudan, wherever, or Iran, if we're not using that basic measure. To determine whether we are on the right side or whether we're on the wrong side, then we are having the wrong discussion. And what we mean to do this season is to hone our focus, to discuss all matters relating to the human family. That what is happening in the world today has to be the concern of the human family, and it has to be the concern of the moral voice. That is given to all of humanity that we recognize. And for those of us who are Muslims, we make a testimony. Those of our brothers and sisters who are Christian, they make their covenant. Those of our brothers and sisters who are Jewish,

Frank 26:25

they have

Faridah 26:25

their covenant in their terms according to their book, but it's a covenant nonetheless. And it goes back to what is essential. Your humanity recognizes when human innocence is under attack. And we're witnessing it all over the world, and we have to have the courage to say I live my life and I determine what is right and wrong according to what God says and the sanctity of human life. Or I use some other measure, but we can't be confused about what it is we're seeing and how we measure what the human family is going to do about it.

Frank 26:58

Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. Confusion. So what eliminates confusion, knowledge. Knowledge eliminates confusion. Now, knowledge we get, we extract that from the earth. We are curious, Adam was the first man, he was curious and God gave him the ability to manage the earth. So from that, he developed knowledge from just the interaction from the natural world. But Revelation is a higher form. Revelation is a direct guidance to how to operate that knowledge. So we see profits. As those who come to Revelation, but not to bring humanity revelation, but not just to bring it to them to exhibit what it looks like in society. And Muhammad the prophet is the one who has the clearest picture, the most complete picture of a just society of how scripture comes to help a society be in this proper and most ex excellent form. That's what that is. That's what the part of leadership that we don't give enough attention to and how important leadership is. So you mentioned that lapel that you have with the Palestinians on it. Behind me for those who can see, I moved to left. I have the picture of the mosque. Oscar in Jerusalem. That picture right there, because that is the focus, that is the focus, as you said earlier, the America is the final discussion. America is the final discussion. But that picture behind me is that discussion of human humanity, human relationships human development, and how humans should be able to interact and have a just society. That's what we want to engage our audience. Those are the discussions that we want to have. And that's where the help comes from. As I said, if someone brings you knowledge or brings you information, it's one thing to acknowledge it. The other part of it is to put it into actual practice and make it what it is, and we call those connections. Those are connections to be able to connect the knowledge with the earth with the environment, and make it happen. My father used to always tell me, and yesterday since you dated the episode on February 27th was my dad's birthday, and happy birthday dad. But he told me happy before Happy Birthday before he passed, he said that it doesn't matter how much. You amass and possessions in the world. He said it's, you get tested on how you used them. You don't, the ultimate test isn't that you have it. It's how you attained it. And how you used it. So for me, and this is he's speaking about himself, he said, for me, I know that the judgment on me will be what I did with my possessions. The good life. That we want to have is being able to come into material and to be able to use it in the way that it was intended to be used. And even if we don't have possessions that the world can, we can point to and the African Americans as a group of people compared to the rest of the world, we don't have anything. We don't have the material wealth, we don't have the material possessions that the majority of the world already has. We don't, we can't compete with them. So we are people who just come, starting to come into our development of having material establishment. But even if you don't have any, it's how did you stay in connection with the good life, the inherent life that you were born with? At the conclusion of your life. That's the emphasis. So when we do now come into these great possessions in the world, if we keep that as the focus, we're able to manage this life and manage the possessions and be able to stay on the covenant and to be able to increase our influence into the world because we're using what we have for good. And that's called charity. And all of those religions that you mentioned before, they all have charity. And even if you don't subscribe to any religion proper, you know what charity is, you know what charity is and how it benefits you, and how you benefits other people who come into the possession. So for the Muslims during the month of Ramadan, which, and which we fast we understand how important. Charity is, and we understand how important our obedience is, and we understand that our obedience is a charity for us because it now gives us something back that we will be blessed with. That increases usually during this month because we're devoting more time. On levels of obedience. So we're taking scripture, we're taking a relationship with scripture. We're wanting to sensitize ourself with what God has revealed and have a better appreciation of that and to be able to now use that into the world. And we call charity, but it's also called leadership as well. So don't wanna go too long into this particular topic, but I just want to conclude this point by saying that the world itself. Is in a chaotic situation because of good leadership.

Faridah 32:15

Or the lack thereof.

Frank 32:16

Oh no. Hey. But as scripture says, if you don't designate a leader, then one will be designated for you. And it's usually that would be the enemy of man. So you do have a leader. So leadership is there. It's just not good.

Faridah 32:29

It's not good. Exactly. Exactly. So I think that's an excellent segue to our request that you follow us on Instagram, Facebook, X, you know, all the social media platforms. We'd love for you to join these regular discussions. We are learning Together, we are moving together on the journey toward human excellence, and we hope you join us.

Frank 32:51

For me, Frank Shaheed, want to say once again, we greatly appreciate your support. We greatly appreciate your time and hopefully with God, God's will and God's efforts, we will all reach the destination. Excellence. Thank you and peace.

Faridah 33:05

Peace be upon you all.